Congress Hears From Muzzled Scientists 664
BendingSpoons writes "More than 120 scientists across seven federal agencies have been pressured to remove the phrases 'global warming' and 'climate change' from various documents. The documents include press releases and, more importantly, communications with Congress. Evidence of this sort of political interference has been largely anecdotal to date, but is now detailed in a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held hearings on this issue Tuesday; the hearing began by Committee members, including most Republicans, stating that global warming is happening and greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are largely to blame. The OGR hearings presage a landmark moment in climate change research: the release of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC report, drafted by 1,250 scientists and reviewed by an additional 2,500 scientists, is expected to state that 'there is a 90% chance humans are responsible for climate change' — up from the 2001 report's 66% chance. It probably won't make for comfortable bedtime reading; 'The future is bleak', said scientists."
Climatologists? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Climatologists? (Score:4, Informative)
What did the scientist say to the senator? (Score:3, Funny)
How dare you, sir? (Score:5, Funny)
How dare you cloud the issue with your obvious attempt to bring facts and real science to the table?
How dare you take a position that Greeny Socialists with a smattering of science are opposed to?
How dare you attack scientists who have been given grant money by biased organizations to prove its man-caused?
You have offended me with your opposing view point and you must be shouted down and prevented from presenting again. We will take whatever certification you have, away. And, we will march in high numbers, and you know the saying:
We have the numbers, so we are right. Because it's popular to say its man-caused, you know its right. Because a bunch of obvious unbiased greenies and socialist say its right, it must be right. We poop on your science and replace it with our hysteria cloaked in scientific terms.
HOW DARE YOU!
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I know you are joking and all, but science is decidedly not a popularity contest, you are thinking of religion. Scientists that make vague assertions based on little or no data usually have no credibility in the scientific communi
The reason that people think you're a troll... (Score:5, Informative)
At first, I thought, hey, maybe you're just misguided. Maybe you are. However, here's the problem with that theory. You've taken the time to get a lot of different links together and post them here. That suggests that you're capable of doing decent searches. Therefore, you should already know what's wrong with your claims. Now, just to answer your objections (so you don't claim I'm "avoiding" the "facts"):
(1) Um, yeah. Change that to the world is (appears to be? really?) getting warmer, and this agrees with the basic science done during the 60's prior to sophisticated computer models, and during a slowing down (and slight retreat) of global warming due to increased particulates in the atmosphere.(2) True, temperature measures are better now than they have been in the past. Current temperature measures (over the last 100+ years) allow us to correlate temperatures with other proxies. These give us not only ways of estimating temperatures from prior eras, but also to get an idea of how much error we should expect in such estimates.
(3) Interesting theory. Of course, no one credible is postulating this theory. Why do you think that is? Also, you're explaining the warming after the fact. See #1.
(4) Gee, what could cause Jupiter to get warmer over multiple years? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Jupiter orbits the sun once every 12 years? Of course, it's actually a little more complicated than that. However, I suggest you leave the explanations to people who actually know what they're talking about. [berkeley.edu]
(5) Of course, Mars annual cycle is closer to ours. And we've been observing it for a very short time. Nevertheless, your questions about that have also been addressed. [realclimate.org]
(6) Yes, livestock (those being raised by us, specifically) are largely responsible for increases in methane, and we should reduce our dependence on them as well. Methane also is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The only positive is that methane has a shorter "shelf life", in that it gets reabsorbed into nature much quicker than carbon dioxide. What's with this shell game, anyway? Are you trying to say that you shouldn't blame humans for CO2 increasing global temperatures because we're also responsible for methane increasing global temperatures?
(7) And, no it is not possible that the warmer temperatures that Earth is experiencing are caused by cyclical natural phenomena. We've ruled that out. It's like if someone were shot (and died immediately afterwards) and you said, hey, other people have died from natural causes, and other people have been shot and lived. Why is everyone assuming the bullet killed the guy?
(8) Oh, and let's not do anything because China won't? Please. That's tired. Yes, China needs to also get their act together. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to get our act together.
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Yes, damn those professors, driving around in their Porsches and private jets while starving barefoot oil executives are selling matches on streetcorners on the coldest and darkest night of the year.
Is this a surprise to you, or are you just joking? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, we haven't.
Take a look at this graph [flickr.com]. There are two set of curves, one comparing the Mann hockey stick [tinyurl.com] to curves [tinyurl.com] showing sunspot activity. The other compares the Moberg 2005 curve to the same sunspot curves.
Here's what I find interesting:
- The Moberg curve (blue curve) follows the Antarctic curve (red) pretty closely, but it tracks almost exactly the same shape as the Greenland curve (green) when it sweeps up in a steep curve in the 20th century.
- The hockey stick curve (orange curve) doesn't do
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An in-depth discussion of Usoskin et al. (Score:4, Informative)
RealClimate has an in-depth discussion [realclimate.org] of the Usoskin et al. paper (as well as a link to the original PDF [cc.oulu.fi]), if you're interested. The comments are often as good as the original article on RealClimate. Here's a relevant excerpt from the original article:
Here are a few interesting points that might or might not be discussed at that site: (a) We've currently just passed through a solar minimum (in the 11-year cycle), yet we are still setting record highs. (b) Around 1957 maximum we were in a local minimum of temperatures. This is best explained by the presence of particulates in the atmosphere due to pollution problems.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1) The world appears to be getting warmer
Yes, I agree, it does.
2) What is causing it? :-
I see 3 options here
a) Humans
b) Something other than Humans
c) Something other than Humans AND Humans
3) Who will suffer if it all goes tits-up?
er, Humans, most definately.
4) Who should at least think about things we can do to stop it, or reverse it?
Well smart as they are, the fscking Dolphins aren't going to help are they! It would seem it's down to us then.
5) What can
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Climate Catastrophe: Cancelled
Part 1
Part 2 [youtube.com]
Part 3 [youtube.com]
Part 4 [youtube.com]
part 5 [youtube.com]
Now to get modded down for disagreeing with the majority
I'm betting I'll get over-rated today
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It's moderation not censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
People modded it down because it at least seems to be deliberate misinformation. Deliberate because the amount of effort that appears to go into it suggests someone who could have taken the time to answer the very questions he raised. This is one of the typical strategies of global warming deniers. Try to spread doubt amongst those who aren't capable of understanding the science. You'll notice that his post followed the typical formula to a T.
The somewhat funny part is that these strategies actually work against each other, except for the main point - to sow confusion and doubt.
Language should be used carefully (Score:5, Informative)
Really? First of all, I had no idea that Nazis were global warming deniers or accused others of it. Are you trying to Godwin the thread? Secondly, I use the phrase precisely. There are global warming skeptics (those who are truly undecided) and global warming deniers (those who are trying to spread FUD). There's a difference. You're the one who's being irrational by dragging in the holocause. Seriously, what are you thinking?
Depends on one's motivation. I've suggested that the Schwarzschild solution to GR might be wrong [virginia.edu], but I wasn't doing it in an attempt to spread FUD. Is it wrong to moderate someone as a troll when you suspect their only motivation is to spread misinformation?
No, he proposed that several different events might be responsible, did enough research to cite sources, yet mysteriously didn't do enough research to know what was wrong with his sources.
Again with the Nazis? I'm not the one trying to Godwin the thread. How is that last point "shouting down" or "silencing people"? If I was trying to silence him, then why did I address every single last one of his points (see my response to him, where I also linked from solid resources)? (Seriously, where the heck are you dragging up this Nazi stuff from? Do you have a fetish or something?)
Re:It's moderation not censorship (Score:4, Informative)
All of the things he mentions in his post have been discussed and debunked, and if he'd spent half the time researching his points that he spent writing that post, he'd know that these things have been addressed. He may take issue with how they were addressed, but he didn't even bother to do that.
Re:Climatologists? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not global warming skeptics, meteorologists who were not educated in climate research, and who were presenting their uninformed opinions as the facts of a studied expert.
There's a significant difference. Someone who is skeptical of global warming, and has read the research and can make his case with facts and reason, is not a problem. Someone who is skeptical of global warming and has not read the research, they just feel that there is something wrong, that climatologists have "something to hide", and hey maybe it's the sun, has anyone thought about the sun? Those are problems, because uninformed unscientific opinions are not helpful in science. When that person is a meteorologist, whom people would assume has an informed scientific opinion and who presents their opinion as though it comes from their expertise, that is damaging.
What exactly do the ecofundamentalists have to hide? It seems to me that one side is saying 'We are skeptical of what you are saying for the following reasons" and the other side is threating trials and decertifications.
No, one side is saying "We are skeptical of what you are saying for the following reasons."
And the other side is saying "Those reasons are bunk, the research has shown this, here's a cite, please read up on the current state of climatology before claiming you have a rational basis for your skepticism."
There's nothing to hide. The research is all there, in the open. The fact that there are few people who are both well-versed in this research and what you would call a "global warming skeptic" should tell you something. No, it's not a conspiracy.
Re:Climatologists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not global warming skeptics, meteorologists who were not educated in climate research, and who were presenting their uninformed opinions as the facts of a studied expert.
There's a significant difference. Someone who is skeptical of global warming, and has read the research and can make his case with facts and reason, is not a problem. Someone who is skeptical of global warming and has not read the research, they just feel that there is something wrong, that climatologists have "something to hide", and hey maybe it's the sun, has anyone thought about the sun? Those are problems, because uninformed unscientific opinions are not helpful in science. When that person is a meteorologist, whom people would assume has an informed scientific opinion and who presents their opinion as though it comes from their expertise, that is damaging.
What exactly do the ecofundamentalists have to hide? It seems to me that one side is saying 'We are skeptical of what you are saying for the following reasons" and the other side is threating trials and decertifications.
No, one side is saying "We are skeptical of what you are saying for the following reasons."
And the other side is saying "Those reasons are bunk, the research has shown this, here's a cite, please read up on the current state of climatology before claiming you have a rational basis for your skepticism."
And then the first one goes "No, really, I don't believe you, and here's why."
And the other goes "Those are the same reasons as before, and I told you, that was covered here. Did you read it? Oh, I guess not. Well would you please shut up until you educate yourself on the topic so we can have a productive conversation?"
And the first responds "Ha! Ha! See that, he's censoring me! You don't dare face my truth! I knew global warming was bunk!"
But of course it's the climatologists who are being emotional and unscientific.
There's nothing to hide. The research is all there, in the open. The fact that there are few people who are both well-versed in this research and what you would call a "global warming skeptic" should tell you something. No, it's not a conspiracy. The conspiracy is what we are seeing in this Congressional hearing, with scientists pressured to change their statements to match an agenda of the administration. I find it really ridiculous that you would sit here and claim it's the ones who accept the conclusions of climate change research who are the ones trying to silence people, in an article presenting evidence of exactly the opposite.
There are scientists -- including those who find fault with existing research and actually try to enhance the state of knowledge -- and there are the "skeptics", who aren't actually skeptical so much as flat-out disbelieving and willing to grab at any evidence that serves their purpose without doing any further research to see if that evidence stands up to scientific inquiry. They are the ones with a pre-conceived conclusion and are "skeptical" of anything that shows otherwise while completely accepting of anything that does -- again, completely bereft of scientific merit. That's really the key here. Everyone's emotions aside, there are people doing real climatology science, and there are people who are not. The correlation between these two groups and the groups who you would call "believers" and "skeptics" tells you something.
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Since the North Pole is not land, it is just floating ice and since unlike most materials, water is actually bigger as a solid than as a liquid (hence freezing waterbottles causes them to burst), it is hard to imagine the oceans rising.
What people are worried about with sea level rise is (a) melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, and (b) warming causing thermal expansion of water.
Even when you count the Greenland glacier [...] and the South Pole [...] it is hard to see mass flooding.
It may be hard for you to see, but it's true. If Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets both go, we're talking potential sea level rises of over 250 feet. Fortunately, it's very unlikely that both will melt completely, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about the much smaller melting that is more likely to happen.
Re:Biased Story (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure if it's poor form to respond directly to this sort of
Choice Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Choice Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't suprize me at all (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that the whole Charade is under fire from every thing to the administrations take on the environment, space, and that god damned war, people are beginning to lift the corners of the rug where this stuff had been swept under. Unfortunately, what's been found continued to rot while it was being hidden. Now it's even more harsh to deal with. In the end, the deals been exposed, the plug's getting pulled, and I couldn't be happier about it. Just too bad a few of us were saying things like this were going to happen since back in the 70's. It's just unfortunate that we had to have an acceleration period in the last 10-20 years to solidify the problem. And too bad the delicate cycle of the Earth has been damaged permanently as a result of man's greed and quest for senseless power and control.
Can't we Just Agree: Bush Worst President Ever! (Score:4, Informative)
I'd like for everyone who still supports GWB for whatever reason to just consider the following few points and try to compose literate and thoughtful responses to justify his track record on any of these issues.
1. Political Appointments - The role of the president is to look out for the best interests of the 'People'. That means trying to represent the many varied interests of ALL the people. Now, Corporations are part of that group, as are members of Greenpeace and all us regular Joes who fall in the middle. The Bush administration has consistently biased most appointments in favor of corporate interests over all other interests. As detailed in the originally referenced article, "Cooney () was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before becoming chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality". How can he be expected to provide impartial leadership? This is just one of hundreds of obviously poor choices detailed here [commondreams.org]. I'm not saying that a former Greenpeace executive would be a better choice for any of these positions. The presidents job is to appoint knowledgeable people who have worked in the field and who are capable of weighing the needs and interests of all sides of an issue to provide decisions that balance those interests. Bush has always failed to do this
2. Personal Freedoms and Liberties - The documentation of the Bush administrations poor record on this topic is pretty extensive. Bush continually uses 9/11 as an excuse to chip away at the basic rights our country was founded on. Illegally tapping domestic phone calls, gathering huge databases of personal financial and travel information, and that small matter of imprisoning and torturing people for indefinite periods without regard for the basic civil liberties spelled out and defended by the constitution. All in the name of preventing another attack that may or may not be preventable. Millions of people die every year for millions of reasons. Tossing away the foundations of our country for a 2% improvement in the chances that you might learn something that could lead to a possible disruption of a plot that may or may not have been successful is not in the best interests of our nation and has been specifically warned against by just about every one of the founding fathers and other great American leaders since then, as seen here [geocities.com]!
3. Iraq War - The decision to invade and occupy Iraq and the continued resistance to every sane voice begging for a change in policy will go down in history as the worst single piece of leadership in the history of our nation! Even if you ignore the fact that the American people were deliberately lied to in order to foster support for Saddam's removal, the disastrous planning, execution, and failure to learn from a single mistake or appropriately adjust policies or tactics based on past failures is mind-numbing.
4. Corporate Welfare - One of the few things GWB has done "For" the people is some tax cuts for middle America. Of course, this was done with gimmicks (mid year refund checks etc.) to mask the fact that the real tax breaks were going to huge corporations that were in no dire consequences before GWB came along. The Bush administration has taken every opportunity to push money back to corporate America in one form or another at the expense of many many programs to assist poor and
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re: 1. Political Appointments. What he has done is in no way different than any other president preceeding him. Right or wrong, it is business as usual. I don't recall any president ever appointing a "common man", much less one of opposing views (Greenpeace as you mention, or PETA) to a position of influence.
re: 2. Personal Freedoms and Liberties. No arguments. With the possible exception of the Red Scare back in the 50s, he has done the m
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Politics = Terrorism (Score:4, Insightful)
Can I declare politics to be illegal and akin to terrorism?
Re:Politics = Terrorism (Score:4, Insightful)
What's not working as designed, is that politicians are not taking seriously (or worse) scientists.
Re:Politics = Terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientists study, and publish their findings.
The media impartially reports the findings based on the quality and the importance of the report.
The public considers the findings reported by the media, and elect, impeach, recall, vote in referendums and plebiscites, etc. as necessary.
When necessary, elected officials legislate directly on behalf of their constituents to solve the problem.
Industry accepts the legislation gracefully.
Here's how I think it actually works:
Scientists are pressured by the government and the corporations to change their findings; most report them anyway.
The media gives equal weight to minority positions on the issue because they want to pretend to be 'fair and balanced', and because they might be owned by a corporation that also has interests in the energy industry. If not, they certainly get lots of advertising revenue from said industry.
The public, mostly unaware of the problem, don't think they can really do anything anyway.
Politicians avoid the issue out of fear of losing campaign financing from oil corporations.
Corporations put ads on TV that give people the impression that they care about the issue, and should be trusted to do the right thing.
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(assuming you're from the US) Because you live in a democracy where, in theory, the population chose their government.
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Galileo must be pleased (Score:5, Insightful)
A genuinely free-market Republican administration would surely want the truth about climate change to be readily available so that the markets could respond appropriately and make capital and resources available for the inevitable re-shaping of society, rather than be associated by similarity of behaviour with the guys in funny skirts who inadvertently helped the Protestants take over the world.
Re:Yes besause... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that stupid "'sky is falling' crowd." Such idiots! Also the "'pi is irrational' crowd," the "'Earth goes around the Sun' crowd," the "'infectious disease is caused by microbes' crowd," the "'current species evolved from previous species' crowd"
Re:Yes besause... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pssst!.... don't tell anyone but none of them ever had irrefutable proof. They simply made observations, thoerized on the cause, found problems with the thoeries, refined those thoeries, etc, etc, etc.
I don't think science is what you seem to think it is.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
GP is simply asking for a bit more than speculation before making trillion dollar policy decisions.
There is more than "speculation" on the matter, but there are still deep uncertainties regarding the extent and impact of future warming. The existence of current warming, and man's contribution to it, is not however in doubt.
Yet, CO2 was an order of magnitude higher 450 million years ago and temperatures were roughly the same as they are today.
Climate isn't correlated with absolute concentrations of CO2, because of all of the other climate factors in effect. Changes in climate are correlated with changes in CO2, however. In fact, the Ordovician temperatures and CO2 concentrations to which you refer support [osu.edu] our p
Is this the U-turn? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I fail to see the logic in this "boohoo, China and India doesn't have to limit their exhaust as much as we do, so let's not join!".
I thought that the United States of America was superior to those lesser regimes, and was supposed to treat its inhabitants better? Whatever happened to that?
Re:Is this the U-turn? (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that the US is NOT the biggest CO2 emissions maker in the world, that title belongs to China, and India is right behind it. Yet they were exempted from almost ALL the restrictions that would have been placed on us!
See here: The first google hit I found, with nice graphs and everything. [manicore.com]
Choice quote: "The "big bad boys" regarding greenhouse gases are without any doubt the Americans : not only their country is the first emitter in the world, but they are also on the podium for the emissions per person, and the latter is still rising!"
What fun it shall be... (Score:3, Insightful)
And BTW - regardless of whether or not global warming is fact or (incredibly unlikely) fiction, why the HELL do we need a reason to reduce carbon emissions, waste-per-person and tree felling? Surely doing any of these is a good thing for us all anyway. Cleaner air and forests for our children to explore should be reason enough.
Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:3, Interesting)
Case in point, I have relatives who are conservatives. I can't say all of them say this, but I'm surprised at the numbers who believe that global warming is a bunch of bull. I was listening to an NPR Technology podcast about this and a guy called in, identified himself as a conservative Republican, and proceded to state that he didn't believe global warming was happening.
I don't get why the skeptisism is drawn by party lines. What am I missing? Is it as simple as the top Republican leadership protecting oil interests and everyone else just follows along, or is there a deeper, more historical context that I'm unaware of?
-S
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It's a bit like the same reason someone spends $1000/foot for an audio cable and honestly believes it sounds superior. Self-delusion. Taking care of the environment would need the republican to perhaps get a smaller car (which means a smaller penis), or even share the car with another person, aka "bus". He would also have to pay more for his energy, and waste disposal. These are not very fun things to do if you value money a lot, thus, in order to protect themselves, the brain actually makes you believe wha
Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:4, Insightful)
They believe the earth and everything on it is here for them to use. Burning lots of fossil fuels is their god-given right. The fact that there might actually be repercussions to this might (just maybe) indicate that they cannot, infact, use all of earths resources however they please.
Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:5, Interesting)
- "(a) Al Gore believes in global warming. (b) Al Gore is a liberal. Thus global warming is a liberal conspiracy"
- "Today it's cold where I live, hence global warming is a fraud"
- "There's a non-zero chance that humanity isn't causing global warming, so we shouldn't worry"
- "I like warm weather, so I don't care"
- "Climatologists are just fishing for more grants, which they want to steal out of my pockets"
- "They can't predict the weather next week, so they sure as hell can't predict how it will be 50 years from now"
- "The Apocalypse will happen before, or is related to global warming, so everything is alright"
The scary thing is that most of the conservatives I know are otherwise quite science-literate and often accept the science communities consensus views. I'd say it's very healthy to be sceptical, but on this issue there's much more to it. Something I can't explain.Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
* "Today it's cold where I live, hence global warming is a fraud"
* "There's a non-zero chance that humanity isn't causing global warming, so we shouldn't worry"
* "I like warm weather, so I don't care"
* "Climatologists are just fishing for more grants, which they want to steal out o
Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Republican, let me present a few points:
1. Historically, the peers of scientists have presented political agenda's by cloaking them in jargon and supporting studies. Examples include Paul Erhlich, Rachel Carlson, Al Gore (with much support by the scientific community.) and whoever that guy was who predicted the worst hurricane season in 50 yrs for 2006.
2.The argument is hardly, if ever, presented in a logical, coherent manner. Usually, it consists of a list of demands that (coincidentally?) line up with socialists and communists. See: the Kyoto protocol. It attempts to impose an aggressively progressive tax code on emissions, and consumption. If we don't like progressive taxes already, what makes you think that we'd like that sort of 'productivity punishment' applied to our country?
3.The alternatives are hardly tenable at this point:
a. Mass transport: Due to the size, shape, and demographic dispersion it is untenable for the majority of American metropolis'.
b. Buy everyone new electric cars. For one, manufacturing all those new cars just uses more energy and produces more emissions. So people proposing that are asinine at best.
c. Everyone should bike or walk to work. Sorry, American not as small nor as densely populated as you may believe. See 3a
d.Solar power: Great, spend a crapload of cash and maybe make your money back. In Oklahoma, your chances of those panels paying for themselves are very probably slim. Gets worse as you go north. For the American SouthWest, they are probably a good investment.
e. Windmill farms: Even the Greenies are confused on this one. Build'em but can't run them at full capacity because they chop up birds. (Maybe the birds will figure out that the windmill farm isn't such a great place to hang out.) Ted Kennedy opposed a windmill farm off of Martha's Vineyard as it would've obstructed their view.
So, if the environmentalists got together and started presenting tenable solutions to our problems, then they might get more reception. For me, I understand that there's global warming, might be anthropogenic, might not... (not's seem to be getting slimmer) but until someone proposes a real idea on how to deal... we'll just deal in the way we always have. Adapt.
Note: One of our saving graces could've been nuclear power, but the greenies shot that down too. Sucks that South Africa is using american developed technology in a pebble bed reactor. Look at the CA power crisis, while part of it was caused by collusion on the part of energy traders, it was enabled by CA's stance on building new plants. In fact, the newest power plant to provide CA with power was just built in NV. NIMBY-ism has killed several things that could make the world a more efficient place, but finding a backyard to put "it" in is rather difficult.
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As a Republican, let me present a few points:
I have no idea what a Republican is. (From my perspective, both American political parties are so far out on the right wing that you need sophisticated instrumentation to tell them apart. *shrug*)
However:
1. Historically, the peers of scientists have presented political agenda's by cloaking them in jargon and supporting studies.
The people-have-been-wrong-before-so-let's-assume-the y 're-wrong-now argument.
2. [...] Usually, it consists of a list of dema
Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:5, Insightful)
a. Mass transport: Due to the size, shape, and demographic dispersion it is untenable for the majority of American metropolis'.
Never been to NYC, I guess. Millions of people every day use mass transit. A large percentage of city dwellers have no car. Every American metropolis has some mass trasport. As roads become too crowded they are forced to provide more mass transit for immediately practical purposes. Your argument is simply false.
b. Buy everyone new electric cars. For one, manufacturing all those new cars just uses more energy and produces more emissions. So people proposing that are asinine at best.
Electric cars have less parts and are less complex. On a large scale and as technology progresses we will use far less energy to produce them. Your argument ignores progress over time.
c. Everyone should bike or walk to work. Sorry, American not as small nor as densely populated as you may believe. See 3a
See China. Not everyone needs to bike or walk, but easily half of the population can as they live in dense areas. You assume this argument is black and white. But if just the SUV drivers in metropolitan areas switched to bikes we'd have less traffic and save a lot of energy.
d.Solar power: Great, spend a crapload of cash and maybe make your money back.
First, protecting the environment isn't about making your money back. It's about having a habitable planet for our kids. Second, you ignore technological progress over time. Every year solar is getting more efficient.
e. Windmill farms: Even the Greenies are confused on this one. Build'em but can't run them at full capacity because they chop up birds.
You're way behind on this one. The largest, slowest moving turbines do not kill any birds. Problem solved.
By your logic we shouldn't have telephones because it's a lot of work to put up the wires. And we shouldn't have electricity because the up-front cost to build the initial generators is so high. All of your points are narrow. They ignore the big picture, ignore some very important details, assume everything is all-or-nothing, and ignore technological progress.
You set a great example as a Republican.
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Fine, but somebody has to pay for it. Should I assume that's something "the Rich" should have to pony up for?
"Second, you ignore technological progress over time. Every year solar is getting more efficient."
Ignoring progress is bad. Assuming it is bad too. I've been told for years that viable, affordable solar energy was just a decade away. I'm still waiting. Once it's there, sign m
Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:4, Interesting)
Never been to NYC, I guess. Millions of people every day use mass transit. A large percentage of city dwellers have no car. Every American metropolis has some mass trasport. As roads become too crowded they are forced to provide more mass transit for immediately practical purposes. Your argument is simply false.
Note that the original poster qualified his statement with "most metropolises". New York City is unusual for a US city in its density of buildings and population. I have no doubt that he already knew of NYC when he posted.
Electric cars have less parts and are less complex. On a large scale and as technology progresses we will use far less energy to produce them. Your argument ignores progress over time.
Both you and the prior poster have unsubstantiated opinions on this. I don't see a reason that an electric car has to be either simpler or more complex than one with an internal combustion engine. And given the add-ons like power windows, computers, etc, it's not clear to me that the two will be simple to compare in complexity or that the difference between electric and gas powered is a significant difference in complexity compared to all the other stuff that gets put on a car.
See China. Not everyone needs to bike or walk, but easily half of the population can as they live in dense areas. You assume this argument is black and white. But if just the SUV drivers in metropolitan areas switched to bikes we'd have less traffic and save a lot of energy.
There are a lot of areas where it is black and white. In a pretty dense environment like NYC, public transportation makes sense and road travel does not due to the cost of finding a place to park. A spread out city like Sacramento, CA, for example, just doesn't have competitive public transportation and bikes are risky in the urban areas. Nothing beats the car there. There is a lot more population living in cities like Sacramento than NYC.
First, protecting the environment isn't about making your money back. It's about having a habitable planet for our kids. Second, you ignore technological progress over time. Every year solar is getting more efficient.
We have other goals than just "protecting the environment". Ending poverty, quality of life, progress come to mind. I see a lot of modern environmentalism undermining these other goals rather than supporting them. And the economic viability of a plan is relevant since economically inefficient plans take more resources from elsewhere and weaken our ability to accomplish these other goals.
Outside of a full-blown nuclear war, there will be a habitable planet for our kids. Global warming isn't moving that fast and no other global threat is that significant. I don't see any nearby tipping points either. Methyl clathrate deposits on the continental shelves, the most substantial bogeyman, have around an extra 100 meters of water on them from the end of the last ice age. The extra pressure from that will counter a lot of temperature increase IMHO before they become unstable and release methane into the atmosphere.
Your point about solar power increasing in efficiency is important. We have both solar cells that are getting very efficient at absorbing solar energy and solar cells that take relatively little energy to produce per KW of generating power. I still see some presence for fossil fuels in electricity generation for a while due to the need for stable power around the clock (energy/electricity storage isn't very good), but that can be replaced easily with nuclear power. But long term it won't make sense to burn fossil fuels for energy or transportation even if global warming turns out to be a minor issue.
By your logic we shouldn't have telephones because it's a lot of work to put up the wires. And we shouldn't have electricity because the up-front cost to build the initial generators is so high. All of your points are narrow. They ignore the big picture, ignore some very important details, assume everything i
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
3b - No they do not have less parts and are less complex. It's just a different tech. Your argument ignores the currency of the situation and it's enormous energy cost.
3c - You ignore the distances again (see K.C.). And,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
3a. Look at the population densities you idiot. Your false dilemma was really nice, too.
3b. You've ignored the costs--financial and ecological--generated by moving 300M people to a brand-new mode of transportation. As Kunstler says, it's not the fuel, it's the lifestyle. We have a society predicated on easy-motoring. Electric cars displace the emissions, but don't eliminate them.
3c. Too stupid.
3d. More stupid.
If CO2 is the problem, how come we're not giving that guy who claims that a tanker full of
Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:4, Interesting)
a. Mass transport: Due to the size, shape, and demographic dispersion it is untenable for the majority of American metropolis'.
b. Buy everyone new electric cars. For one, manufacturing all those new cars just uses more energy and produces more emissions. So people proposing that are asinine at best.
[...etc...]
This is actually a relatively easy problem to solve, or at least improve, and many Republicans even agree with the solution: Pigou taxes [blogspot.com]. To explain simply, this means imposing a tax on gas or oil because the negative externality oil imposes in both environmental and foreign policy terms. When the price of something goes up, the consumption of it goes down; such a tax would certainly improve the situation WRT a-c, although d and e might require other solutions.
It's a fairly neat policy that requires no convoluted, mangled regulations; it could replace broken CAFE standards that drove people to SUVs in the first place; it also has the benefit of denying oil revenues to despotic regimes in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia.
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Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:4, Insightful)
Global warming, if true, forces us to face changing most of our current way of life.
Personally, I think this traditional conservatism is just wrong. It's not a useful way to approach life, struggling against everything new that happens. But it is very human.
Re:Please explain Republican attitudes toward this (Score:5, Insightful)
A believes fact X justifies policy P.
B believes policy P is wrong.
B therefore denies fact X.
What is wrong with this picture?
I don't deny for a moment that there are still a lot of watermellons in the green movement, but the above argument is simply a logical fallacy of the kind commited by people who care more about their politics than the facts.
True greens recognize that imposing coercive limits on human behaviour is unsustainable. And we also recognize that markets are one of the most effective tools for changing human behaviour and gaining large efficiencies (which so long as they don't depend on contaminating or otherwise abusing the commons are also environmental efficiencies.)
It is only when greens shed their lefty image and non-greens start making arguments based on fact rather than politics that the debate will get anywhere.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Happy to hear of your continued health, Senator McCarthy.
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You have just given us a great example of Republica
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I can only speak for myself. I am a scientist and engineer - a lot of my res
The joke is... (Score:3, Interesting)
global warming or not. Even when not, the politicians have to do something.
The reactions may be different in the two cases, but something has to be done do be
prepared. But have you ever heard that a politician said "hey, it's not us,
but we have to cut down CO2-emissions, reduce the pollution and restructure
the coasts to prevent the biggest desasters in the future"?
Uh-Oh (Score:4, Funny)
On second thought, Earth is a little....eh.
I'll keep looking.
Love,
Jor-El
Oh, that's different. (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting show. There are these aliens who land and ingratiate themselves with humanity. They seem friendly, wise, and charismatic, but they're really planning to take over the world. In the course of this they spread lots of FUD about scientists (who are of course the ones most likely to discover the truth about them) to the point where scientists the world over are discredited, and ultimately persecuted by humanity just for being scientists.
Science fiction, eh? Where do they come up with this ker-ray-zee stuff?
Scientist Do Not Agree (Score:3, Insightful)
From the Senate [senate.gov]:
There are opposing positions to Al Gore's propaganda movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." There are opposing views that should be discussed.
No one diputes the fact that the Earth is warming. However, there is not scientific consensus that it is caused, or substantially increased, by humans. The inconvenient truth that Gore fails to mention is that about 10,000 years ago, the Earth was so warm that citrus fruits were growing in what is now northern Germany.
There were no cars and precious few people to cause the Earth to be so warm. That period was followed by an ice age. When the ice age ended, the Earth began warming, and has been warming ever since. It will continue to warm, until another ice age occurs.
Many publications on global warming deliberately leave out these facts, so as to lend credence to the theory that we are causing global warming. The culprit is not the Earth's habitants; it is the sun, which we sometimes see in the Pacific Northwest. The Earth has been in a continual cycle of heating and cooling, and there is nothing we can to about it. That's another "inconvenient truth."
Muzzling attempt?
Check out this blog post from James Spann:
From his blog [jamesspann.com] - his bio:
Official bio here [abc3340.com]
Re:Scientist Do Not Agree (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even IF you don't "believe" in global warming, at some point you have to address the impact that our civilization's industries are having upon this world. The problem is that conservatives get so wrapped up in fighting against "the hippies" that they never even stop to think about this much larger issue.
I mean, just look at this plot of Carbon emissions does that look good to you? [wikipedia.org]
Even if you don't subscribe to the basic scientific inference from trend (more of a greenhouse gas --> greater heat from
Whereas, on the other side of the Atlantic.. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, an equal investment isn't being put towards improving public transport (which is truly horrendous in the UK).
I'd be wary of what you ask of the US government - it may be all too easy for them to follow the UK government's lead and just start using "climate change" as an excuse to extract cash from the populace.
Run a NASA Climate Model on your laptop (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, our model shows increased snowfall on Greenland (a common skeptic retaliation). This does not mean global warming is not happening, but rather what was predicted: Warmer air can hold more moisture, so there is increased snowfall. The melting on the edges is occurring faster, so overall we have mass loss of the ice cap.
Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
As a signatory to this statement (Score:4, Interesting)
--
The future is NOT bleak, it's sunny: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
To directly quote one of the "Muzzled Scientist".. (Score:4, Funny)
MMMPPHHHH!!!! MMMMMMMPPPHHHHH!!!!!
If we treated the war with the same skepticism... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with most of these scientists is they haven't figured out how to lie to the American public as effectively as the politicians. When politicians figure out a hundred different ways to take away our essential liberties with patriotic sounding names, emploring us to think about the children and defend our families from The Terrorists (TM), that's A-OK -- and please don't think I'm dividing this down party lines, there's politicians from all parties that are happy to cement their power base. When the scientific community suggests that we really ought to do something about the shit we're pumping into the atmosphere, suddenly everyone's flashing their Junior Climatologist merit badge and telling them why it ain't so.
News flash: real scientists don't deal in absolutes. They provide estimated probabilities and sensible suggestions. Becoming more eco-friendly is not going to turn us into a pinko communo-socialist hippy state any more than, say, allowing the president to expand the scope of government is going to turn us into a dictatorship. We're ostensibly on the same team here.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd argue that the president and his minions are very well taking a stance.
By intentionally shutting up scientists and censoring them.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Then it's too late, way too late! If it becomes a national concern depriving Americans of their god given right to wear t-shirts in winter and wool sweaters in summer you'll be looking back at Katrina as a tame, little storm of allmost romantic proportions.
No. I
Re: (Score:3)
If is yes and when is now.
Capisce?
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
And how do you know this? Did you learn it from a true climate expert such as a talk radio host?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Where I learned the information is irrelevant to the content of the argument."
True. And since your argument is empty, devoid of rationality, counter current science, unsupported, and done in the spirit of riling people up, it is irrelevant. Go drown in a flooding.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, if is YES and When is NOW.
The big problem with the whole "There's no Global Warming" crap is that is doesn't take into account human processes. It just looks at our Earth from a static viewpoint and assumes nothing we could do could ever change things, while adding in massively deflated numbers of Human pollution. But the models that the scientists are using conclusively prove that predict real climate change is happeni
Since (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be too stupid to understand the notion of consequences, so here's how it goes down: global warming == grave national threat. Think about it -- the feds can combat terrorism, and all terrorists can do is (at best) murder people and destroy infrastructure. Global climate change can utterly impoverish America and make it a supplicant nation, dependent on others for basic food-stuffs while half the population lives in shantytowns after having to abandon their flooded hometowns, and 10% of the workforce is unable to work because they have drug-resistant malaria.
I'd say that any president who DOESN'T make global climate change their business is not just stupid and incompetent, they're also a traitor. Frankly, it's kind of surprising that you would hold your president to a lower standard of accountability that you would a hobo or, say, a dead raccoon.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What gets me is there are things that can be done.
And they can be done *now*.
Ban incandescent light bulbs. Mandate energy efficiency in consumer electronics goods. Promote a viable, cheap and efficient mass public transport system. Enforce recycling (now underway in UK). Promote locally sourced goods and produce (don't eat food thats moved more then 1000miles to your plate). Mandate efficient motor vehicles. Either sort out hydrogen fuels cells or admit you were wrong and go the
More but but but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me tell a fact.
Climate change is not due to us, its due to Sun getting hotter.
Its proved and the ultimate truth.
Happy now?
So what does it change?
Does it change that the earth is getting warmer? No
Does it change that sea levels will rise? No
Does it change that polar ice caps will melt disrupting global weather patterns? No
Does it change this can lead to drastic impact on world food production? No
Your attitude is like - Diseases are not man made, so don't take antibiotics.
If it was calculated that an asteroid will strike earth after 10 years and cause mass extinction, would you want everyone to sit on it because its not man made?
Grow up. The problem is the concern part. Who caused it will will decide later. So if there is something Humans can do to offset nature, its better to do it before its too late. Nature being the cause won't change the fact that the global climate change is not good for us.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, he uses a bit of harsh language but he has a point. Most people are now getting to the point where they can see through the PR and simply look out the window to notice the effects of global warming.
The main problem is that the rest of the world has known what to do about this for some time - reduce consumption of fossil fuels (Or breath less as some people have suggested, but I cannot be arsed explaining why this is not a viable solution). Howeve
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not a good solution. The only long term solution is to stop breeding [vhemt.org] like you're a frikkin sha^Wbunny.
(not "you" as in you, but you know, in general. *sigh* Engrish is a great language.)
Re:but but but but... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Stupid, Stupid, Stupid (Score:4, Informative)
Imagine you have a pan of water on a gas stove. The meteorologist will try to predict where individual convections will appear in the pan. This of course gets quite difficult when you get more than a few seconds in the future.
A climatologist on the other hand figures at what rate the water as a whole is heating, and the effects of putting a lid on the pan, or turning up the heat. The effects can be accurately predicted quite a long way into the future when you're looking at the entire contents of the pan, not trying to predict where each convection current will be.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid, Stupid, Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The first part of your claim is not only false, it is contradicted by the second part of your claim. "Steady state" systems do not need to undergo "corrections". Dynamically stable systems do.
The Earth is a huge dynamically stable system, and it has corrected itself EVERY time in the past. That is a true statement, but an uncomfortable one, because the Earth's dynamically stable climate undergoes excursions that are quite significant relative to the stability required for human civilization to thrive.
Even local events like the Younger Dryas can ruin your whole millenia. Global events like ice ages, or the mode switching to a hot, dry climate for a few hundred or a thousand years that we see in some ice core data, can make things very uncomfortable indeed.
Scientists are concerned about global climate change not because we are worried about the "end of all life on Earth" or some equally algorean kookery, but because we know with certainty that the Earth's climate maintains a dynamic equilibrium that will happily accomodate excursions that would make a mess of our lives and our descendent's lives, and we know with certainty that we are giving that dynamically stable system a nice wack with a hammer by increasing effective insolation by a percent or so over the past two hundred years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Correct. That means you do the research topic you were asked to do, not come up with the research conclusions you were asked to. One is government funding priorities in science, the other is an abuse of the scientific process. If you are following these hearings, you would know that it is the latter that is in question here, not the former.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: "Man-made Global Climate Change" (Score:3, Informative)
More like, GW-denial is the Lysenkoism [wikipedia.org] of the 21st Century.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider people like Al Gore (who admittedly has done a lot to ge
Re: Good. Cold, hard numbers. (Score:4, Informative)
Cosmologists predict a Big Rip. Solar scientists predict that the sun will swallow the earth. Some astronomers think we'll eventually get dinged by a killer asteroid. Epidemiologists are terrified by some of the strange disease that have been turning up over the past few decades.
The difference with global warming is that it's happening as we speak, not some distant or random threat.
It's a legitimate question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Responsible scientists are not simply talking about warming. They're talking about climate change that is both more complex than simply "it's warmer" and they're talking very specifically about change that they can't account for when they take everything else they know about into account. Natural greenhouse emissions (methane, CO2), solar intensity, how long you leave your XBox 360 on, etc... if it's warmer than we expect from all of those things, then we've got issues.
Re:What Happens if it is all SOLAR (Score:5, Insightful)
That's been debunked pretty thoroughly, see e.g. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192 [realclimate.org].
Firstly of course, we have several satellites monitoring the Sun constantly, and its activity has been declining in recent years, as it goes towards the minimum of its well-known 11-year cycle (the article is from 2005, I guess it's probably reached by now).
As for the Mars ice cap, see the article; it gives many reasons why it is wrong to consider this 3-year regional change to be an indication of global warming on Mars. It's not special. The article concludes:
Thus inferring global warming from a 3 Martian year regional trend is unwarranted. The observed regional changes in south polar ice cover are almost certainly due to a regional climate transition, not a global phenomenon, and are demonstrably unrelated to external forcing. There is a slight irony in people rushing to claim that the glacier changes on Mars are a sure sign of global warming, while not being swayed by the much more persuasive analogous phenomena here on Earth...
Re:What Happens if it is all SOLAR (Score:5, Informative)
Don't listen to the parent; I don't care about his personal observations and flawed reasoning. Does he really think scientists haven't considered solar influences?
"On behalf of all scientists: Thank you BoRegardless (721219)! We thought it was CO2 but we never stopped to think it was the sun! I guess we should get our noses out of the office and read Slashdot more!"
Doesn't it strike you as amazingly arrogant to think that you have, in a single post on slashdot, shown thousands of climatologists, who have dedicated their academic lives to researching the climate, to have wasted their time?
Don't listen to my opinions on climatology, I know fuck all about the climate.
Don't listen to politicians; they listen to us.
Listen to the scientists. To those reading please add one thing to your todo list for today: Print off and read the IPCC's 2001 summary report [www.ipcc.ch]. It's only 34 pages long, has lots of illuminating graphs, it's very readable and clear, and most importantly it is based on peer reviewed scientific evidence that is readily available [grida.no].
The document above is a summary of summaries for policy makers, if you want to get into more detail:
-
See here [grida.no] for a summary of the scientific basis for global warming.
-
See here [grida.no] for a summary of the predicted outcomes of global warming (eg sea levels, global temperature).
- And see here [grida.no] for a summary of the expected impacts on humanity (eg droughts, migration) and mitigation.
All of these summaries have respective, exhaustive scientific documents behind them, but they do a good job of summarizing the reasoning and evidence.Personally I'm looking forward to seeing refined conclusions and increased certainty in estimated from the data accumulated over the last 5-6 years. I thank the scientists which the parent belittled for collecting and summarizing this data.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
While solar variations certainly have influenced the climate in the past, including recently, they simply have not been large enough to explain the majority of warming the Earth has experienced in recent decades. (See Stott et al. (2003), among others.) In what must be an incredible coincidence, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased with timing, rate, and magnitude that do agree with the ob
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Susan Wood is one http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti c le/2005/08/31/AR2005083101271.html [washingtonpost.com]
Rick Piltz http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/d etails/ccsp-resignation/ [climatesciencewatch.org] is another.
On the other side of the conflict, the resignations have been forced as a result of the publicity surrounding their nefarious activities. Of course, the revolving door takes the sting out.
--
Good morning sunshine: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users [blogspot.com]